Unable to repair this whole disk: A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is

[Kruddler]

My Mac crashed today and when it restarted, my external HD has failed. So, I went in to Disk Utility and was going to repair the disk, but none of the normal buttons such as "Repair Disk" were enabled. So, I went to Terminal and ran a few commands. It tells me that:

diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk2

Unable to repair this whole disk: A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required (-69773)

So, I plugged the drive in to my Windows computer and navigated to the drive (I have Mac Drive installed which allows windows to read Mac drives). The drive works fine and I can see all my files. Why is it that Windows can read all the files on my Mac Drive and yet Disk Utility can't even fix the partition?

Anyway, what now? The drive is perfectly fine. It must just have a damaged partition. So, how can I repair the partition? Why doesn't disk utility want to deal with this?

 

[Kruddler]

Ouch! I just downloaded a program called Disk Drill. It lets you download the software for free, do a scan, and it successfully shows me all my files. However, it won't fix the partition for me unless I upgrade to the Pro version and this costs $89. What a rip-off!

I can go out and buy a new hard drive for the same price and then copy the files using Mac Drive on to the new drive. Has anyone had experience with this software? Is there a different cheaper piece of software that does the same job?

 

[mayuka]

There's an util called Disk Warrior. It has more functions and costs about the same.

I think there are some OpenSource tools available that came pre-installed with some linux live-cd's (or similar). Don't remember their name, though. You might want to search for those.

The filesystem is definitely rapairable. You just need the right tool for it. You don't have to buy a new hard drive.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ So, I plugged the drive in to my Windows computer and navigated to the drive (I have Mac Drive installed which allows windows to read Mac drives). The drive works fine and I can see all my files. Why is it that Windows can read all the files on my Mac Drive and yet Disk Utility can't even fix the partition? ]]

As mayuka mentioned above, DiskWarrior is the Mac app that has the best chance at repairing a damaged directory. That's the only thing it's designed for, and it does the job very well.

But if DW doesn't work...

If I was in your shoes, the FIRST THING I would do would be to connect that drive back to the PC, connect an empty drive (formatted for HFS+), and copy the contents of the problem drive to the empty one. (Note: I'm not a Windows user and have no knowledge of it, is there an app on the Windows side that can clone a Mac-formatted drive?)

In a difficult situation, you go with whatever works. Since (for reasons unexplained) the drive cannot be mounted "on the Mac side", but CAN be mounted on the PC side, work with it on the PC side. Of course, you must be very careful there, as well.

Then, I'd take the second drive over to the Mac, and see if it could be mounted there.

The important thing is to get the files onto a second drive.
Then work with the damaged one to see if it can be fixed.